Greetings from coastal Thailand, where a long holiday weekend recently gave some of the islands and beach towns a much-needed boost. This edition of the Island Wrap also covers a Covid-19 case found on Ko Samui, two shipwrecks in the Gulf and a rundown of the week’s news on the environment, tourism and more.
This post marks exactly six months since I launched Thai Island Times. A big thank you to all of you readers and all those who offered encouragement along the way.
Earlier this week I spotlighted the Urak Lawoi people who are indigenous to the Butang (Adang) archipelago. If you haven’t yet, learn how these fascinating “sea people” have adapted to the forces of mass tourism, a national park and a Thai court system that often denies them native land rights. Later this week I’ll stick with Ko Lipe in the fourth of what has turned into a five-post series on the Butang archipelago. (Yes, sometimes this newsletter has a mind of its own.)
Also a head’s up that I’m taking next week off from the Island Wrap because I expect to be on the edge of my seat following the US election. The Island Wrap will be back on Wednesday November 11th.
Over on Couchfish, Stuart is enjoying some (virtual) island time at Cambodia’s Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloen. He also unveiled the mother of all spider bites, endured by a diver in Malaysia’s Perhentian Islands. Be warned: that story might make you lose your appetite or whatever happens to be in your stomach.
Hat Luboa on Ko Pu. It may not be the best for swimming at low tide, but most travelers who end up here come for the ultra-mellow vibes anyway.
Pick of the week: BEACH
The sand of Hat Luboa extends in a crescent backed by spartan bungalows and a conical mountain on Ko Pu, a mid-size island also known as Ko Jum in Krabi province. Within view of Ko Phi Phi, this is an old-style backpacker beach where you can hop out of a longtail boat and look for a 200 to 700 baht hut that suits you. To reach the busier part of the island you’ll need to hike, bike or ride down a dirt lane that cuts through several km of forest and rubber farms. For the travelers who choose to stay here, that measure of seclusion is part of the draw.
Covid-19 update
The first known case of Covid-19 on Ko Samui since April — and only the third in Thailand outside of quarantine facilities since late May — was found on October 21st when a 57-year-old woman who had recently returned from France turned up at the emergency room. She showed symptoms and tested positive twice after testing negative several times over her two weeks at a quarantine hotel in Bangkok.
She’d been released from quarantine on the 15th, leading to speculation that the transmission happened inside the quarantine facility. Her husband and son tested negative along with other passengers on Bangkok Airways flight 167, which she flew direct to Ko Samui on the same day she was released from quarantine. Close to 200 others have been traced and tested, with no other infections found.
The island was not sealed off or placed under any form of lockdown. While I’ve heard stories of taxi drivers denying rides to people who flew to Bangkok from Ko Samui shortly after the infection was found, the public seems to have largely followed advice from the government to not panic over a single case.
A boat crew assesses a partially sank container ship near Ko Phaluai, west of Ko Samui. (Source: Dept. of Marine and Coastal Resources)
Weather news
A fishing boat sank in rough seas around 10 km off the coast of Pattani province in the Deep Southern Gulf last Thursday night. Two crew members were rescued after spending 16 hours in the water, but a third is still missing.
A 78-meter-long container ship, the Satat Samut 3, partially sank between mainland Chaiya district and Ko Phaluai in the Mid-Southern Gulf on Saturday night. The ship was carrying rubber and other goods from Surat Thani to Laem Chabang in Chonburi when she shifted and took on water. The exact cause is still being investigated. Fishing and marine police boats safely rescued all 10 crew members.
A flash flood sadly caused the death of a 50-year-old man in Ban Ta Khun district near Khao Sok National Park on Sunday. Floods also inundated the main highway in Bang Saphan Yai late last week.
The weather has been a lot better in much of the Thai Andaman region, where tourists flocked to the recently reopened Mu Ko Similan and other marine parks over the long weekend. (Check out the video below to see what conditions were like there.) A separate video from Phang Nga town shows a “sea of mist,” which locals say marks a transition from the the monsoon to the cool and dry season.
A glimpse of the Similans late last week. (Source: Thairath)
We’re not quite out of rainy season yet, however. The category two Typhoon Molave is now bearing down on Central Vietnam, an area that has been repeatedly bashed by major storms and flooding recently. If you want to help those affected, Friends of Hue and Lifestart Foundation are two of the charities providing relief.
A weakened Molave is expected to bring heavy rain to Northeast Thailand later this week, while those along the Eastern Gulf and other coastal areas should expect some side effects from the storm.
Wildlife and environmental news
National park officials tried their best to save an injured dugong found in Maya Bay at Ko Phi Phi Leh, many km from its normal habitat, on Monday. The 1.7-meter adult dugong later died at a facility on Phuket, where a CT scan revealed broken ribs and severe bruising that made swimming difficult.
Officials from Ao Siam National Park in the Bang Saphan area captured rare footage of a hawksbill sea turtle laying some of its 177 eggs. Across the Gulf in Rayong, a fisher did a good deed times two when he helped a hawksbill sea turtle and a green sea turtle that were stuck near the mouth of a river.
Over in Chanthaburi province, thousands of sea cucumbers washed up on Laem Singh Beach last Wednesday. Low salinity in the seawater, caused by all of the freshwater dropped by recent storms, is being cited as a cause. Many of the “sea worms” survived when the tide rose and carried them back out to sea.
Below the water, 60 divers from Ko Tao worked on a new coral rehabilitation project last week. And two tons of garbage were removed from coastlines as part of “Phuket Green Day,” an island-wide clean-up held last Wednesday.
Divers doing some coral gardening near Ko Tao. (Source: Dept. of Marine and Coastal Resources)
Locals in Chonburi’s rural Bor Thong area are on the lookout for a wild elephant that killed a monk and a farmer last week. In related news, Bangkok Post has a report on how Thailand’s 4,200 domesticated elephants are weathering the pandemic. “Some mahouts and their elephants have had to return home due to a dramatic decrease in the number of tourists,” writes Pattarawadee Saengmanee.
Near Bangkok in Samut Prakan, rescue volunteers removed a two-meter python from a toilet after it bit a woman, leaving her with cuts on the rear end to go with a new-found toilet phobia. Remember to look before you sit.
Social media corner
A lot of good travel stuff was posted on Twitter over the long weekend, including shots and videos from Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi provinces by @RichardBarrow, @doseoflifecom and @thaizer. But given what’s on the horizon in less than a week, I think this tweet by @tomvater is most appropriate:
Tourism industry news
A group of 145 travelers carrying special tourist visas (STV) arrived in Bangkok on Monday from Guangzhou in China, although some onlookers are again speculating that many of them are actually part-time residents of Thailand. Meanwhile, contradictory info from Thai officials is sewing confusion about whether quarantine hotels will soon be available in places like Ko Samui and Pattaya.
Potential tourists from Europe and other continents are waiting for Thai authorities to release a list of countries that are cleared for the STV program. Considering that retirees with valid visas are still locked out, the government might be getting ahead of itself by planning packages for foreign tourists interested in golf and wellness.
Thailand’s latest visa amnesty is set to expire on October 31st. Any foreigner in the country who hasn’t received an extension should find an immigration office.
This video shows the moment of a huge natural gas explosion in Samut Prakan last Thursday.
In other news
Two were killed and many injured in an explosion at a PTT natural gas facility in Bang Po near Bangkok that sent a massive fireball into the sky last Thursday. A damaged pipe has been cited as the cause of the explosion.
Pro-democracy groups held another large protest in Bangkok on Monday, this time marching to the German embassy on Sathorn Road to submit a letter regarding the Thai king’s residence in Bavaria. Yellow-shirted supporters of the monarchy who oppose the pro-democracy movement rallied in Bangkok, Chonburi, Surat Thani, Phang Nga, Krabi, Phuket and even on Ko Phangan. James L. Taylor’s analysis in New Mandala predicts potentially violent confrontation on the way.
In the Deep Southern Thai province of Yala, a young man was arrested and fined for putting up a banner to mark 16 years since Thai authorities killed 85 Malay-Thai men, mostly by suffocation, after they were bound and piled into trucks for protesting the arrest of activists in Tak Bai. The massacre reignited a civil conflict in the Deep South that successive Thai governments have failed to end.
The International Trade Union Confederation denounced the three-year prison sentences handed down by a Thai court to 13 railway union leaders over their investigation into a fatal 2009 train derailment in Khao Tao, south of Hua Hin. And Land Rights Now spotlighted the farmers in Surat Thani province who were arrested “on trumped up charges” and sentenced to more than 2.5 years in prison after trying to stop a large palm oil company from taking over their land.
In transport news, prominent hoteliers on Ko Samui have again voiced their support for a potential bridge project to link the island with the mainland.
A Reuters report by Rina Chandran details Bangkok’s plan “to restore some of its canals and introduce electric ferries” to ease road traffic in the capital.
Bangkok Airways is adding or re-launching beach-focused routes between Phuket and Ko Samui, Hat Yai and U-Tapao Airport near Pattaya.
Two dogs attacked and “badly injured” a four-year-old Thai boy on Noppharat Thara Beach in Krabi province last week. It was the first serious dog attack on that beach this year, but a similar incident involved a foreign child last year.
Expats on Ko Samui are trying to bail out a 21-year-old South African woman who was arrested after allegedly signing for a package that contained 250 grams of MDMA. She claims to have had no knowledge of what was inside the package, which was addressed to her former boss at a cafe that she now manages. She could be in for a long prison sentence if found guilty of narcotics trafficking.
Thai Spicy has a new travel article on the delights of Songkhla, a historic and photogenic city set between Thailand’s largest lake and the Gulf. It’s one of my favorite provincial capitals in the country.
Finally, locals in Trang were spellbound to find a smelly mushroom that resembles a human hand, while fishermen in Krabi caught a fish “with a human face.” Not surprisingly, no one would eat it. 🌴